Spirit of the Antipodes Day 2

Today we set out, after a good night’s sleep and a buffet breakfast on the 13th floor with beautiful harbour views, with me as the guide. I had armed myself with a suggested 14km walk which would take us along the harbour front, past various points of interest, and through interesting and historic precincts. 
The day was cool and overcast, perfect for meandering. 

Two hours into the walk we were still in the Maritime Museum, the third point in our 14 point tour. In fact it took us three hours to see the museum which covered Maori watercraft, encounters between Maori and white men arriving on ships from the Northern Hemisphere on missions of exploration and discovery and later trade, through to modern craft, America’s cup bids and other record breaking ventures. It also comprehensively covered lighthouses in New Zealand, developments in reliably determining longitude and latitude and the workings of gps. 

After that we needed lunch.  We settled for the museum cafe before moving on, but my pumpkin and feta quiche, which I was informed contained only that, actually contained capsicum. So I had to settle for Stephen’s ham, tomato and parsley quiche instead (ham is never my first choice). The iced lattes were nice however, and provided us with the fuel to journey on, across the Viaduct Basin, the bascule bridge and the cantilever bridge, past harbour-side eateries and into the Silo Park. The latter was a great family friendly park with many different features and fun activities including water parks, making use of the otherwise defunct harbour silos. 

At the end of the wharf we took in views of the Harbour Bridge and a giant three-masted super sailing yacht. We later learnt it is owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and valued at a cool NZ $800 million. 
Leaving the water behind then, we walked to Victoria Park, in what was now bright sunshine, crossed it and moved on to the Light Path. This is a dedicated, elevated shared cycling and pedestrian trail painted pink and featuring pulsing LED interactive light poles at night. We walked the 640m elevated section formed from a disused off-ramp and then dropped down onto the famous K’Road with its row of OpShops (yes, I did check them out) among other things, and an LGBTTQIA+ rainbow crossing in place of the traditional pedestrian crossing.  

Down the hill we came across Grafton Bridge, a renowned reinforced concrete road bridge spanning 97.6m and standing some 43m above Grafton Gully. It stretches across an old cemetery, some of which has been absorbed by the road network. 

Finally we headed to the University of Auckland where we admired its architectural clocktower and walked down to the old Governor’s Residence now part of the university campus. From here, it was a short distance to the Movenpick Hotel down Shortland Street, the historical commercial hub of Auckland. 

Back at the hotel we purchased a Movenpick icecream available in the foyer, before retiring to our room. 
After we had regrouped we popped up to Boda on the 13th floor to partake of happy hour before going out again to find dinner. I had suggested the Princess Pier for a meal with harbour views, there being a  variety of eateries, although some didn’t have a table available until 8:30, possibly because today had been New Zealand’s Labour Day holiday. We settled for Wharfside, a burger bar right beside the water and sat down to sip our wine and await our meal. And we waited, and waited, and waited. Finally, after we had been there well over an hour, and other guests who had arrived after us had eaten and left, Wallsy went and enquired after our food, despite assurances that it wouldn’t be long, it was obvious to us our order had been forgotten. A free glass of rose and another 15 minutes later, our meal arrived with apologies for the fact that our docket had been misplaced. We could have booked an 8:30 table elsewhere and still been finished at the same time!  Anyway, the food when it arrived, was delicious, but our walk back to the hotel was necessarily quite brisk, as the evening had cooled down somewhat.